A Christmas Prayer

Levi, who will be three in a couple of months, offered to say grace before the family shared Christmas Eve dinner. He said, "Jesus, thanks. Food. Amen." Concise and to the point. I'm sure God was glad he didn't run on and on.

Another Lucy and Ricky Ricardo Moment

I found an item in Bed, Bath and Beyond that I wanted to purchase, but it seemed a little pricey to me (I’m not cheap, just thrifty). I suggested to Mr. Fixit that we shop to see if we could buy the item cheaper. After trying several different places and not finding a cheaper price, Mr. Fixit said, “Go back to Bed, Bath and Behind and get that thing you wanted.”

Deja Vu

Mr. Fixit gets off work at 8:00 am every morning. He had an appointment with the cardiologist at 9:15 am today. I drove over to accompany him. We had an hour to kill so we did a little Christmas shopping. He left his truck in the parking lot of the store where he works, and we went about our business in my car.

After the appointment, we were both in a rush to get home to have breakfast. After driving about half way home, he groaned and said, “We forgot the truck again.” We went home, had breakfast, watched a little “Cash Cab,” and drove the 16 miles back to get his truck. This isn’t the first time this has happened. (See December 14, 2007post.) I’m so glad that gasoline prices are down!

Old Dog, New Tricks?

Jason called to ask me if we had relatives still living in Miami. He had received an invitation from some young woman to become his “friend” on Face Book from Miami. I mentioned that I don’t understand the Face Book concept at all so he tried to explain it to me. He was surprised to learn that his Mr. Fixit has a Face Book page. Mr. Fixit was invited by members of his family to join. We set up his page but could not figure out how to use it.

While Jason was trying to explain it to me, I accidentally changed Mr. Fixit’s relationship status to “In an open relationship.” When I saw it on the page, I started to laugh. It popped up on Jason’s page. He (Jason) was yelling at me, "Get that off the page! Hit delete! What will my friends think if they see Dad is in an open relationship?” I was laughing so hard I had tears running down my face. I said, “Well, you can tell everyone that’s why he’s having heart problems.”

Follow-up

After Mr. Fixit’s trip to the emergency room Thanksgiving evening, we scheduled visits with our family GP and with the cardiologist the following Monday. Our family doctor talked to us about some minor problems found at the ER and reassured us about the possible outcomes of the visit with the cardiologist.

The cardiologist suggested a heart catheterization be performed the next day. I think he thought that nothing much would show up because he scheduled it at the local hospital that can only to the caths, not the corrective procedure that sometimes needs to be done. Every time I mentioned that Mr. Fixit’s lips turned blue, the doctors all looked at me like I was crazy. I think they were looking at his lab work seeing that he had not suffered a heart attack. I knew that something was terribly wrong because the blue mouth means that he was not getting enough oxygen.

The next day after the heart cath the surgeon told me that Mr. Fixit should have a procedure to put a stent in one of his arteries because he found 99% blockage. When I asked how soon it should be done, he said right away. I asked, “Does ‘right away’ mean today, tomorrow, next week, or next month?” He said that he wanted him transported to a Greenville hospital that same day with the procedure scheduled for the next day. He said that Mr. Fixit could have a heart attack at any moment. They put him in an ambulance and took him to the bigger hospital. They said they didn’t want me to take him in case he had an attack in the car.

The next day the stent was put in place, and he seems to be doing very well except for a sinus infection that is causing headaches.

We did have a few little problems with the heart surgeon. I suppose that he is entirely focused on doing his thing and he forgot that we were sitting in the waiting room. We had been told that the procedure would take an hour or an hour and a half. Two and a half hours later we were still waiting to hear that Mr. Fixit was okay. Finally, we were told we could call the recovery room to check on him. He had been sent back to his room without any instructions to the floor nurse or without any word to us by the doctor or anyone else. I was on the verge of losing it, imagining that he was lying in the morgue. The doctor also seemed at sea when we asked him a few basic questions.

We will go to the follow-up appointment, but we have asked our GP to recommend another specialist for any future problems. I have no doubt that the heart specialist did a good job, but he needs to remember the human factor.

A statin and blood thinner was prescribed and he is carrying nitroglycerin in his pocket. We are now eating a low salt, low cholesterol diet that I should have been on years ago. It’s boring and unappetizing, but it’s better than the alternative.

Mr. Fixit is going back to work tonight.

Tip of the Day

When your telephone rings and you say "Hello" and the response is "Don't hang up", hang up.

Mr. Fixit is home after spending a few harrowing days in hospital. He's okay. On the positive side, I have enough blog material for a while. Strange things happen in hospitals. More to come after I shovel out the living room and kitchen and do laundry that's been piling up for a few days.

Heart of my Heart

Tomorrow Mr. Fixit will undergo a heart catheterization. He's more than a little nervous. He says he hopes they find the cause of the episode Thursday even if it calls for more treatment. The doctor said that if a cause is not found, the only thing to do is to wait until it happens again--not acceptable. That would be like living on the edge of a precipice waiting for the fatal fall.

We also saw our GP. He scheduled an appointment for next week to do some follow-up tests.

I KNOW that he will be okay.